from Cali to the middle

I came from California- sunburnt streets and broken glass lullabies, where the air buzzed with sirens and survival. Then they dropped me in Missouri, where the sky stretched too wide and the silence felt like judgement. I didn't belong in cornfields or church pews. I brought palm tree scars and earthquake hearts to a town that smiled too politely to ask what I'd been through. I wore my pain like neon. They wore theirs like secrets. And I didn't know how to fit in without folding myself in half.